David Kishik

David Kishik is the author of To Imagine a Form of Life, a series of paraphilosophical books: volume 1, To Imagine a Language, is an examination of the axis around which Ludwig Wittgenstein's evolving thought turns; volume 2, The Coming Politics, is a fragmentary investigation of the unitary power behind Giorgio Agamben's work; volume 3, A Theory of a City, is an imaginary sequel to Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project, set in twentieth-century New York; volume 4, On the Rest of the World, is a radical rereading of the opening chapters of Genesis, refitted for a post-secular world; volume 5, Notes to a Schizoid Self, is a work of autophilosophy that can be read as either the preface or postface of the complete series.

The current decade is dedicated to five works of practical philosophy: for part 1, Transcription (2021-2022), he made a handwritten edition of his previously published books; for part 2, Conversion (2023-2024), he defaced coins and exchanged them for real ones. These will follow by part 3, Education (2025-2026), part 4, Circumnavigation (2027-2028), and part 5, Summation (2029-2030).

Besides, he translated, from Italian, two of Agamben's essay collections: Nudities and What Is an apparatus? Some of his shorter pieces appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Lapham's Quarterly, 3:A.M. Magazine, Public Seminar, and Alaxon. His work has been translated into German, Russian, Korean, Farsi, and Hebrew. As a performer he appeared in Netta Yerushalmy's Paramodernities.

Previously he was a fellow at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. At Emerson he received the Miller Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Huret Award for Faculty Excellence.